Designing a web and mobile solution for Brick, a fintech startup that enables aspiring business owners to crowdfund capital.
My role
UX/UI Designer & Researcher
Teammates
CEO
CFO
Lead Designer
Programs used
Figma
UserTesting
Asana
The Product
Brick was a fintech startup that aimed to allow budding real estate developers to raise money to fund real estate projects via crowdfunding.
My Contributions
Convinced investors to invest by demoing wireframes made in Figma, garnered user interest via surveys, solicted user feedback via interviews, and ensured team coordination by maintaining all design requirements via Information Architecture.
Step 1
Brick first started as a team looking to make a really innovative product in the real estate space. Our initial idea was to crowdfund millions of dollars to buy a skyscaper in NYC and then share the profits that come from rent with investors.
I took this idea to potential users and solicited feedback.
Good thing I vetted this idea before we got too excited.
Users were quick to point out that the idea was impractical, and that it almost even reeked of a scam. They were hesitant to invest in such a plan. However, users noted that there were some strong themes in the concept. They were especially keen on our ideas of using crowdfunding as a way to raise money to buy real estate. A team member then said, "What about if we did this but for small businesses?"
We all had a kind of "eureka" moment, and I took this refined idea back to our users.
Many startups fail by not validating their concepts.
Bingo. This was an idea that our users said was practical, and I even got some potential investors to get pretty excited. This gave us the enthusiasm from our users that we needed to move along.
Step 2
It then came time for me to gain a thorough understanding of who our users were. This would enable us to understand which pain points our designs need to accomodate.
I used surveys (qualitative data) to understand our users at a broad level.
I used focus groups and user interviews (quantitative data) to understand our users at a more nuanced level and dig into interesting findings.
This allowed me to make the following two personas.
Step 3
Now that our proof of concept had been validated, and we knew who our users were, it became time for me to make a fully detailed Information Architecture that captured all of our requirements. This process technically began during Step 2 but was further excelerated after I completed user research. I built our Information Architecture by
Conducting user interviews with potential users
Holding design brainstorming sessions with the team
Conducting competitive analysis and searching for inspiration
This allowed us to keep track of all of our requirements and outline a very clear plan for our product within a manageable scope.
Always outline projects before designing!
Step 4
By this point I knew that our product had a place in the market, I knew who our users were, and I had a detailed outline for our product. Thus it came time to begin wireframing, and I was able to wireframe in rapid time because I had carefully maintained our requirements. I used our personas to make the following designs based upon their needs.
Anthony Roe
Small Business Owner
I designed
a page where Anthony can list his property
because
he needed a way to display his business idea and subsequent documents to potential investors.
I designed
a page where Anthony can view all of his properties at a glance
because
a small business owner could have multiple properties listed and would want to see how each of his properties are doing from a top-down view.
I designed
a visible profile that Anthony could build out
because
establishing his legitimacy as a competent business owner, as opposed to some random person on the internet, could instill confidence in potential investors to pull the trigger.
Tom Kellers
Potential Investor
I designed
a page where Tom can view listed properties
because
he needed a way to browse potential investments and choose the ones he wanted to invest in.
I designed
a page where Tom could view all of his investments at a glance
because
an investor could have multiple ongoing investments and would want to see the status of each of his investments from a top-down view.
I designed
a space where Tom could view profiles of business owners that had properties listed
because
he may be more motivated to invest in a business owner, as opposed to simply investing in their properties, if they seemed competent to him.
All of the above design decisions resulted in the following high fidelity wireframes.
I then used the above list of persona needs to produce the following designs.
Step 5
Unfortunately, we failed to secure enough investments to officially launch Brick. Investors that said they would shell out money suddenly went quite once the time came even though enthusiasm from users was high. A large reason for the lack of funds was our inability to present to them a large enough list of users that had pre-signed up for Brick and were ready to use it once the platform was built.
It's a brutal reminder of the fact that up to 90% of startups fail within their first five years.
Summary
My time at Brick was instrumental and valuable for the following reasons
I validated the proof of concept thus changing our idea from buying skyscapers to crowdfunding the buildup of small businesses by utilizing user research.
I conducted user research that gave us an in-depth understanding of our users, their pain points, and their motivations.
I kept our team organized by gathering all requirements within a singular Information Architecture.
I realized our user's visions, and excited investors in important pitch meetings, via high fidelity designs that I made in Figma.